I ask every new client the same opening question: "Why do you win deals?" The answers I get almost always fall into one of two categories: features and relationships. "We have a better API." "Our support is more responsive." "Our sales team is stronger."
Occasionally I hear a third kind of answer, and it sounds completely different: "We win with companies that are making their first enterprise software purchase and need a partner who will hold their hand through implementation." Or: "We win when a company's data team is three people and needs a tool that doesn't require an engineer to run." That's positioning. And it's devastatingly effective.
What Positioning Actually Is
Positioning is the decision about which specific competitive context you choose to operate in — and why you're uniquely qualified to win there. It's not a message. It's not a tagline. It's a strategic choice about where you play and how you win.
The classic positioning work by April Dunford is the best framework I've found for operationalizing this concept. The core questions are:
- Who is this for, specifically? (Not "companies" — which companies, with which characteristics)
- What market category are you competing in? (Not always obvious — the right category changes how buyers evaluate you)
- What differentiates you from the alternatives they're actually considering?
- What proof points validate that differentiation?
The output of answering these questions honestly is a positioning brief that transforms how your team sells — because every conversation starts from a foundation of clarity instead of a product feature list.
The Most Common Positioning Mistake
The most common mistake I see is what I call "feature positioning" — describing your product's capabilities as if the capabilities themselves are the differentiation. "We have AI-powered analytics." "We integrate with 200+ tools." "Our platform is fully customizable."
The problem is that your competitors can say roughly the same thing. And when every vendor says roughly the same thing, buyers default to two selection criteria: price and relationships. Both of those are terrible places to compete on.
Strong positioning makes the feature comparison irrelevant by reframing the context. Instead of "we have better analytics," it's "we're the only platform built specifically for RevOps teams managing multi-product revenue lines — which means our analytics are designed for the decisions RevOps actually makes, not the decisions a generic BI tool assumes you're making."
That statement doesn't invite feature comparisons. It invites a conversation about whether this buyer has multi-product revenue lines — and if they do, the positioning is already doing the selling.
How to Run a Positioning Sprint
A positioning sprint takes 2–3 weeks and involves four activities:
Win/loss analysis: Interview 10 recent wins and 10 recent losses. Ask the same questions to both: What alternatives did you consider? What made you choose us (or not)? What was the one thing that tipped the decision? The patterns that emerge from these conversations are your actual competitive differentiation — not what you think it is, but what buyers are actually deciding on.
Segment prioritization: Plot your top 30 customers on a 2x2 of win rate vs. contract value. The segments in the top-right quadrant — high win rate, high ACV — are where you have genuine competitive advantage. That's where your positioning should be anchored.
Competitive mapping: Map the 3–5 alternatives your buyers actually consider (not just direct competitors, but the full competitive set including "do nothing" and "build internally"). Identify where your position is clearly differentiated from each.
Draft and test: Write a positioning statement following the structure: "For [specific ICP], who are [struggling with specific problem], [product name] is a [category] that [specific differentiated outcome]. Unlike [alternatives], we [specific proof point]." Test it in 5 real sales conversations. Refine based on what resonates.
The Business Impact
Companies that complete a rigorous positioning exercise typically see 20–30% improvement in win rates within two quarters. The mechanism is straightforward: when your reps enter a conversation with a sharp, specific positioning statement, they're qualifying faster, building credibility earlier, and reducing the "we need to evaluate four other vendors" response that kills sales cycles.
The goal of positioning isn't to sound impressive. It's to make the right buyers immediately recognize that you're built for their specific situation — and to make the wrong buyers self-select out quickly.